Business Tips #2: Be Friendly

This is the second of the business tips I want to share to all. If you have read my first business tip, you’ll notice that I have removed the term weekly in the title of this series of posts. This is because my passion tells me to share more than just weekly tips. Business ideas instantly appear into my mind and I’m eager to share it as quick as I can. The thingy thing is that I can’t wait for a week to pass before I post my next business tip. So that’s how the title goes. Now, let’s go to the point. Be friendly, what’s up with this instruction? How can it become the key to business success?

Be friendly with your customers

When I was just starting my website development services, I can hardly find clients due to my decision to not pursue on aggressive marketing schemes. That time, I only had three clients. And guess who are they? They are my friends. With that fact, I realized that if I have more friends who probably need my services, I could have obtained more clients even without doing intensive promotion. Have you tried to be a friendly person lately? Did it help you acquire more customers or clients?

Being friendly must not only be practiced in finding prospective customers, but it must also be consistently practiced in keeping your existing customers. Friendship is a deep and lasting relationship that must be preserved. It must also be founded with trust and confidence. Thus, assuring the quality of your products to satisfy your customers is a must to preserve trust and confidence and keep them attached to you.

Be friendly with your employees

Your organization must work as one and must accomplish a common goal. Moreover, the people inside that organization should be in one spirit. Thus, if your employees have other thoughts, wills and feelings, which are not aligned to yours, then it’s a big problem. It can create walls and gaps between people and can certainly ruin your organizational efficiency and productivity. To prevent it from happening, you need to be a great manager, as well as a great leader. You need to be close to your workers’ heart. That can only happen if you’ll befriend them. You need to be firm and at the same time… gentle. So, have you maintained a harmonious relationship with your employees lately?

Be environmentally friendly

We are in the verge of exhausting our mother nature. Hence, we need to start protecting our environment. Being green will not only give you additional points in the eyes of your customers, but it will also increase their confidence and impression that you care for our planet. Furthermore, by making your business or company green, you can be assured that the nature, including the people who devote their lives in protecting it, will not fight you back. So what’s the color of your business?

Be friendly with the government

The government is the one that imposed laws and regulations to make our nation exists in peace and order. The officials lead our country; we elect our officials. Therefore, we can say that the foundation of our government is us, the people. The point is that we should not break the laws of the land. Take a look at our laws. Understand them. Are they created to hurt the people?

If there are corrupt officials, they are the persons, and not the government. They are the abusive people, not the laws and power. Therefore, stand and be friendly with the government. Be friendly with the laws and obey them. To assure a lasting business success, you need to pay not only money (taxes, tolls, licensing fees, etc.,) to the government, but you also need to pay attention on how to help it, including its people. So, are you a friend or an enemy of the government? Are you having a clean conscience or are you having sleepless nights?

Be spiritually friendly

An important key to success in business, entrepreneurship, management, marketing, leadership and other related business activities is wisdom. Wisdom leads us to understanding of the values and virtues we need to achieve success. These virtues include patience, diligence, self-control and kindness, which can help us to accomplish befriending our customers, employees, our nature and the public. The principle is that if we can’t befriend our Creator, how much more those that He has created, i.e., people, planet, public and even yourself? So, have you been happy and grateful with God lately?

Thank you for reading this business tip. You may also read the following business tips:

Victorino Abrugar is a business consultant, blogger, speaker and entrepreneur. He's the founder of Optixor, Inc., a digital marketing company based in the Philippines. Follow him on Twitter at @viclogic.